ADMIN: Genre Redux Challenge

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

This one comes from pearl_o who notes that:

"our stories have a lot of variation, but there's still mostly a common genre we all stick to in writing our fanfiction. So what I think would be really cool would be a Genre Challenge -- for all of us to pick a specific genre of writing and write our fanfiction in that, with its style and rules.

An incomplete of possible genres: mystery, detective story, thriller, horror, ghost story, historical fiction, harlequin or regency romance, sf, fantasy, western, drama, children's book, Platonic dialogue, memoir/biography, academic paper, newspaper or magazine article, textbook, religious text, chronicle, guidebook, reference book."

So switch that story into a different key: set your DS in a genre you normally don't write in.

Today's October 27th; stories are due November 10th at midnight.

Edited to add: I'm editing the title of this challenge to make it "genre redux"; yes, we did a genre challenge last year, but I thought it would be better to open us up to multiple genres than just to do a horror/Halloween story challenge. So use any alternative genre that you like.

Comments

[china_shop]

Psst! We did this last year..

:-)

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

Sorry, yes; I know; I should have marked it differently. I left it in the open challenges folder because--well, because it's really 21 challenges and because I think it's broader than doing just a horror/halloween challenge. I'll mark it Genre Redux, though, to distingish it from the other!

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

Does this mean, though, that we need more suggestions?

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

We always DO need more suggestions, but right now, we particularly do, only because a lot of the ones left are the same sort of thing--e.g. we have suggestions for a Duck Boys challenge, a Stella challenge, and a Fraser's mother challenge, but I don't know that I'd do any of those right after a "Other Characters" challenge, if you follow me. (Similarly, you don't want to do really porny challenges right after another.) So we could definitely use more suggestions, particularly for the new year, (since we're coming up on challenge amnesty season while everyone does yuletide/ds_sekretsanta/etc.)

Brainstorm blurt

[china_shop]

Suggestions:

A diary challenge: we hear a lot of Bob's diary entries, but what about Fraser's... or Ray's (or Ray's) or Stella's or Frannie's or Turnbull's or Welsh's or Mort's? Does Ray write down his sexual fantasies about Fraser? Does Fraser, post-CotW, secretly admit to his diary that he misses Chicago? Or what about that one diary entry of Bob's that tells Fraser exactly what he needs to hear at exactly the right time?

Bad sex challenge: It can't always be perfect first time, right? Things go wrong, they get interrupted, they're too nervous to get it up...

Spam challenge: Take a subject line from a spam email and write a story about it. (Current possibilities in my spam folder: it's no wonder your girlfriend is very angry; magnificent future; dye; paste; prosperity amble; very interesting part-time job; under the money-moon.)

Kinda similar, kinda not, how about a horoscope challenge, either inspired by an existing horoscope, or about how one of the characters reading their horoscope is inspired to act (or pissed off, or confused) by what it says.

Car challenge: Stories set in, on, or around the Riv or the GTO.

Re: Brainstorm blurt

[lucifercircle.livejournal.com]

I was going to suggest a diary challenge! However my challenge was more along the lines of making the story be completely in the format of a diary entry. That could be a little restrictive though, so yours is probably better.

How about a hat challenge? Because there are quite a few hats in the show and I can't think of a reason not to.

I don't think a bondage challenge has been done yet and I can just imagine the porn potential.

Or if a bondage challenge is too specific, a kinky sex challenge would be quite fun. Because we could write about all sorts of obscure and/or bizzare sexual practices, as well as the obvious.

A flashback challenge could be interesting, with all or part of the story being told in the medium of a flashback. (Or flashbacks.)

[loz]

How about an alternative life 'what if' challenge - what if RayK had become a meat packer, what if Ray V had followed Frankie Zuko into the mob - what if Welsh had become a small-town cop like his brother, etc. etc. ?

Bad luck challenge - sometimes things just conspire to fuck you over. You missed that call you've been needing to catch all day. You fell over in the elevator and sprained your ankle. Maybe you were wrong about something and now you've got to make things right, but everything's just getting worse. If it wasn't for bad luck, you'd have no luck at all.

The 'broken' challenge - hearts break, so do glasses. Promises. Personalities. Write a fic about something that's broken. You might try to fix or heal it, or it might be cracked for good.

[joandarck.livejournal.com]

I'd been going to suggest mistakes - screw-ups, blunders, mistaken identities, wacky hijinks, regrets, etc. Kind of similar...

[bjohan57.livejournal.com]

I always thought it would be kinda fun to to a reverse-roles kind of challenge where you follow the same kind of plot as canon DS episodes but see how they would alter if, say, Victoria had come back and hatched her dasdardly plan when RayK was around instead of RayV? Would things have turned out differently? What if RayV was in Mounty on the Bounty? Would Fraser and Ray now be lost in a yellow submarine in Lake Ontario, or wouldn't they have got into that situation in the first place? etc etc etc


I also adore epistolary fics - has there ever been a specific challenge on here for that? I love trying to read the underlying messages beneath the words in the letters.

[china_shop]

Re your first one: oh yes! A Ray-swapping challenge! Rewrite an episode (or a part of an episode) with the other Ray and see what happens (or replace Fraser with the other Ray, if you're a Ray/Ray gal). I've been wanting that challenge for forever! :-)

Would we need to dish out episodes, though, so not everyone rewrote Victoria's Secret and Asylum?

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

I think even if people chose the same ep, bits would be different! And why limit it to Rays? Swap other characters!

[china_shop]

If everyone was swappable it might be a bit too close to the Mix and Match challenge. :-)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_unhurt_/]

all i can think is: how hard is it to get your hands on a replacement black GTO?

[renenet.livejournal.com]

Challenge suggestion for whenever: cave in! Trapped in a collapsed whatever. Bodily peril, enforced closeness, huddling for warmth, living off whatever happens to be at hand, huddling for warmth, engineering clever escape — the mind delights, truly.

[custardpringle.livejournal.com]

Or a more metaphorical collapse-- someone's life or attitudes or habits being totally overturned or destroyed. Or am I stretching the idea a bit too far, here?

On a more original note, I am a total n00b-- has there been a "forgetting" challenge yet? Because if not, that's my suggestion.

[renenet.livejournal.com]

Not stretching too far. There's always room for metaphor. It's what separates us from the, uh, cavemen.

*delurks and waves shyly*

[vingt.livejournal.com]

Challenge ideas mentioned by others that I think would be excellent:
The 'broken' challenge
The Ray-swapping challenge
The cave-in challenge

I also thought that a fear challenge might be interesting, especially in exploring the things that might scare Fraser - so maybe a 'Fraidy Fraser challenge. Even when we're allowed to see Fraser's vulnerable moments (Victoria, Quinn) fear doesn't often take centre stage. And he never seems to show fear of any physical situation, even when death seems certain (trapped with RayK in an ice crevasse). What does it take to scare Fraser? How does he express it?

me again

[custardpringle.livejournal.com]

More challenge ideas, because I had nothing better to do at work this morning:

Museums, or just art in general.

And mazes. Literal or otherwise.

*does not have a maze story already in mind, nope, not at all*

*whistles innocently*

[lucifercircle.livejournal.com]

An AU challenge.
OR a Crime challegen, where a crime has to take place or be solved during the story. Like in a real DS episode.

[custardpringle.livejournal.com]

I need to stop repeatedly commenting to this same post, but I have a question: does House of Leaves count as genre horror?

no, you don't want to know where I'm going with this. I don't really want to know where I'm going with it.

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

Belatedly answering--I'm not sure if it's horror (it might be!) but it's definitely a genre of its own. Pomo maybe!